


Out of Turn

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Series: The Thinker, The Feeler [8]
Category: Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alien Culture, Amica Endurae, Anger, Arguing, Best Friends, Bittersweet, Damaged Chase, Difficult Decisions, Dubious Science, Emotionally Repressed, Explanations, Major Character Injury, Medical Examination, Oaths & Vows, Partnership, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Earth Transformers, Racism, Rants, Stubbornness, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: “Chase? You there?”“Yes.” Chase released what was meant to be a calming ex-vent before admitting, “Heatwave, I’m damaged, and I don’t know where I am.”“What?! What do you mean, ‘damaged?’”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Enclosed in the story is a headcanon credited to delkios on tumblr. I suggest you read that story first but it's not severely mandatory. If you want to read the headcanon, go [here](http://delkios.tumblr.com/tagged/rescue-bots) and look for "Everything's Alright".
> 
> If you want the short version, it's that some Bots have been part of scientific experiments which dampen their emotions to make them "more objective", but it just makes it hard for them to understand abstract ideas like "fun" or "joy" or "hate". Some of these Bots develop anxiety problems, obsessiveness, perfectionism, etc. Chase is one of these Bots.

There was only a nanoklik for Chase to wonder,  _Did I speak out of turn?_ just before the first blows came down. The larger of the two mechs picked him up as though he were weightless and slammed him onto the ground, while the smaller of them started pommeling him just as he struggled to rise again. It happened again and again, too fast for him to register until it was over and the pain set in like a shockwave.

He landed on his hands and knees first and from there he tried to twist so he landed on his side rather than his face. He thought one of the mechs assaulting him might have said something as they left, but the ringing in his audials drowned most of it out; all he heard was the fragmented phrase, “piece of glitching scrap.”

As he leaned his weight, turning onto his back inch by inch, the only sound he could find the air to make was a thin whine. Somehow, he mused distantly, it was better this way. A different, more sensitive mech would be clutching at his wounds, working to control their vents so they wouldn’t turn to hysterical sobs.

Of course, Chase never would have been in this situation if he hadn’t been _different_. That realization was the true pain he felt, keen and clear as it burned into his mind, but he pushed it away to focus on the physical. Shuttering his optics, he silenced several red alerts that his processor was sending and tried to still his thrashing spark.

His entire body throbbed hard enough that it was difficult to tell how bad the damage was, but he thought the rotator cup in his hip might be out of socket, one of his hands felt… _wrong_ …and he tried to avoid assessing his back and shoulders just yet. Lifting his better hand ever so slowly, he probed gingerly at his helm. There was some denting but no energon or cracks, thankfully, so he made a cautious move to sit up. Pain tore through his core, his vision spat static and a fresh set of system warnings scrolled through his processor, but little by little he clenched his teeth and forced himself to persevere until he was slumped against the nearest ambiguous wall.

For the first several minutes that he was upright, it was all Chase could do not to black out, but as tempting as that was, he wasn’t quite finished evaluating his damage. Trembling slightly, he brushed his good hand over his chest. His fingers came away painted blue with energon, which was bad enough, but without the agony of shifting his internal mechanisms, he couldn’t reach the true source of concern, which lay deep behind his chest-plate.

Chase’s spark hadn’t stopped racing and roiling since his attackers had left and he wasn’t sure what to make of that. He gasped again, jarringly, in a futile attempt to laugh at the irony. The mechs who had left him in this state had targeted his chest, pounding their message into it, calling him “Dead Spark”, but they couldn’t have been more mistaken. The nauseating activity it was creating now sharpened his senses, quickened his venting, and made sure he knew that he was quite painfully alive.

 _Medical attention_ , he reminded himself, unsure of when he had lost that train of thought. He needed to call someone—for the rest of his injuries, even if the movements of his spark were nothing to worry about. The shock and pain in his helm, however, seemed to have wiped his memory: he couldn’t remember where on Cybertron he was.

His hand was jittery as he pressed energon-wet fingers to his comm. link, hoping to Primus that Heatwave hadn’t gone to his berth and switched his comm. link off.

Heatwave picked up after four trills and in his relief, Chase almost forgot to greet him.

“Hey, Chase, where are you?” Heatwave sounded relaxed, even happy, and there was a lot of background noise. For a nanoklik, Chase felt sick for—of all things—interrupting whatever his partner was doing. “Chase? You there?”

“Yes,” Chase murmured.

“Well listen, me and a couple of others are just finishing up a few energon cubes. If you want, I can get you something and bring it back to the—”

“I would prefer you retrieve me instead,” Chase interrupted, releasing what was meant to be a calming ex-vent before admitting, “Heatwave, I’m damaged, and I don’t know where I am.”

“What?! What do you mean, ‘ _damaged?_ ’” Heatwave demanded in disbelief. “What happened? Have you called a medic? What are your coordinates?”

“My internal coordinator is trying to resynchronize, but I’m unsure if I can trust it; I have a helm injury.”

“Oh, that explains why you’re being so slaggin’ calm about this!” Heatwave growled, but Chase could hear multiple layers of concern under the angry quip. “Alright, I’m on my way. Tell me what you see around you.”

When Heatwave was communicating with Chase on the comm., he found it easy to concentrate on his mission and keep moving, combing through every secluded area of the sector he could think of which sounded remotely similar to what the policemech was describing, but once he found the right one and saw his partner’s optics latch onto him, wide and bright in the darkness, he faltered to a stop, processing the scene in front of him—the half-dried energon, the gashes and dents.

For a terrible klik or two, the only thought that entered his mind was what exactly he would do if he ever found what—or _who_ —had caused this. Then Chase said his name and Heatwave lunged forward, landing on his knees beside his partner.

“By the Allspark,” he muttered through clenched teeth. It was even worse up close; here he could see how violently Chase was shaking and sense how wildly his EM field spun. Was this the former NET patient’s version of shock? He wouldn’t doubt it. “Y’think you can stand if I help you?”

“Perhaps.” As Chase shifted an arm over his shoulders and the firemech started to straighten, he added hastily, “Heatwave, I—I would appreciate it if we didn’t make the trip to the hospital. Our Academy suite is closer.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! Since when are you a medic? Do you seriously think you’re going to treat these on your own?!”

“I was hoping you would assist me.”

“Do I look like a medic either, Chase?! We’re not trained to handle this! Nothing you say is going to change my mind; you’re going to the—”

“ _No_ ,” Chase spat, his grip on Heatwave’s back tightening so suddenly that it pinched a nervecircuit. “I _refuse_ to be hospitalized. It will only result in unneeded attention.”

Even as Heatwave wondered what kind of attention Chase was worried about, he scoffed. “Well, you’re not in much of a state to resist if I’m carrying you.”

“On the contrary, Heatwave—I will resist by refusing to be carried. I will sit in this alleyway until I gather enough strength to walk to the suite on my own, if I must. I will not be hospitalized,” Chase insisted, already using a sudden burst of energy to slide his arm over Heatwave’s helm in order to sink back down to the ground.

Regardless of Heatwave’s previous words, there was something so unyielding about Chase’s strange vow that he already found himself tightening his grip to keep Chase close as he pivoted in the direction of their Academy suite.

As soon as they stumbled into their home, Heatwave steered his friend toward the nearby couch and rushed upstairs to gather whatever medical supplies he could find. Upon returning, he found Chase had slumped backward on the couch’s pad, optics half-shuttered, but judging by their steady brightness and how firmly he had pressed his hand against his chest, he was still conscious.

“Move,” Heatwave snapped, prying the hand away so he could put pressure on the cracks leaking energon. Glancing up to meet the overly bright optics, he pointed out, “Chase, you haven’t told me what happened. Why didn’t you want to go to the hospital? Why didn’t you call another rescue unit? I’m _pretty_ sure they have rules about assisting officers who are down!”

Chase stiffened, optics burning up at the ceiling, the wall, anywhere but Heatwave’s face. Overwhelmed by a sudden surge of helpless anger, Heatwave gripped his shoulders, earning a gasp of startled pain that plowed into his conscience. “What is wrong with you?” he demanded nonetheless. “Do you want my help or not? If you do, you need to tell me what the frag is—”

Chase’s hands clutched at Heatwave’s, harsh enough to dent, and their owner did something Heatwave had never witnessed before: he started screaming. “Is it so hard to discern, Heatwave?! I didn’t want to be hospitalized because the medics, strangers who I trust as little as my attackers, would ask me the same questions you currently are! I would be forced to tell untrustworthy strangers that I was attacked because I’m _different_ than they are and then, whether they intended it or not, they would treat me just as poorly.

“They would act as if I am _senseless_ , like I cannot see their judgment or hear their whispers, calling me ‘damaged’ or ‘substandard’ or ‘faulty’ when they assume I’m out of audial range! Once they noticed my abnormally high spark-pulse, they would want to open me up and see how defective it is, and when they called my fellow policemechs to hear my report, I would be forced to face the very officers I was afraid to call because I couldn’t be entirely sure they would even deign to help a _‘glitching, unreliable NET machine!’_ ” At last Chase’s voice broke from the strain he’d placed on it and he propelled Heatwave’s hands away, taking the shammy into his own and repositioning it to staunch the worsening leaks.

For a long minute Heatwave gaped at his partner, trying to process the stream of information that had just been forced onto him. Chase’s panting was the only thing breaking the silence between them until Heatwave reached out, gripping his friend’s knee. “Chase…” he whispered numbly, quietly, latching onto one of the phrases he found most important right now. “Let me see your spark.” Chase jerked his helm again, optics fierce and guarded, and Heatwave went on, trying to rationalize his request. “You wouldn’t tell me all of that if you didn’t trust _me_. Just…let me see.”

“You will not like what you see.” Chase’s voice had returned to its clipped staccato state, but the words themselves still spoke volumes.

“I don’t care,” Heatwave informed him earnestly. “I’m not going to judge you; I want to make sure it's alright.” He was already trying to piece together a more convincing argument in case Chase continued to hesitate, but gradually Chase cracked open his chest armor, droplets of energon and flecks of paint falling as he did so. Heatwave’s throat caught.

He had seen a few sparks before, but none like this. His partner’s spark, naturally green, was pulsing so quickly that it was nearly a blur, but Heatwave could still see the surface of it, riddled with burned-out, translucent patches of gray scarring, tendrils of white-hot energy weaving together and spitting sharply to protect them. Some of the deadened areas were blacker than the rest, making it clear which parts of NET’s “treatment” had been more successful. There were the emotions Chase found it so hard to access, flickering behind the burns for just a nanoklik before dissolving like they had never existed.

From what Heatwave suspected, Chase didn’t have to worry about his spark-pulse rate; it was probably just adrenaline from the fight which would calm down more gradually than others’, since Chase couldn’t expend it with emotional outbursts. Chase didn’t seem interested in hearing that anymore, however; he looked like he was bracing himself for Heatwave’s scorn. Really, didn’t he know Heatwave better than that? Instead the firemech knelt more fully, took a klik to collect himself, and then finalized his decision. He unlatched his own chest-plate.

“What are you doing?” Chase questioned, face strained and downcast.

“I want to know if you’ll—if you’ll do me the honor of receiving my light and becoming my Amica Endura,” Heatwave said, missing a beat or two before he rushed on, “I didn’t have time to memorize the words or anything, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot, I guess, and wondering why we haven’t gone through the ceremony already.”

Chase blinked rapidly, opened his mouth and then closed it again. Heatwave wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he fidgeted, admitting, “I’m supposed to tell you why I want this to happen. I want you to be my Amica Endura because, even without the ceremony, you became that a long time ago.”

“But…why? _How?_ ”

“I don’t know, I’m not good with stuff like this!” Heatwave snapped, flustered. “Because you’re—Chase, you’re everything I’m not, and somehow it works out between us. You’re my partner and I already trust you with my life and if you think you can trust me with yours when you won’t trust _any_ other Rescue Bot, I want to be there for you.” He paused, searching for a phrase which actually came from the Amica Rites, and finally came up with, “For now and forever…and all that.”

Chase was nodding before he had even finished. “Yes,” he murmured, _almost_ managing a smile as he refolded his chest-plate. “As soon as my armor is…in better condition for a formal undertaking, the answer is yes…my friend.”

Despite himself, Heatwave couldn’t help the ripple of affection and excitement which flared in his EM field and spark, brightening it for a nanoklik before he too settled his armor back into place to temper it. As it always was with Chase, they would settle business first, he decided, suggesting in a softer voice, “Then let’s get you cleaned up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo this fic's themes are a bit heavy, but I have a feeling the hints of racism against Chase's kind that I've been throwing into the rest of the series were always leading up to something like this (and by the way, it's about time these two finalized their BFF status!) 
> 
> Also, I know I got Chase beaten up pretty badly in this one, but it was mostly a test to see how well he did under the strain. It was also a good practice run before I start writing a story prompt I was given by a reader. I'll be working on that soon ;)
> 
> Anyway, I hope I wrote this situation well. Comment and tell me what you thought; I'd love to hear from you!


End file.
